


Like a Diamond

by Hagar



Category: Diamonds - Rihanna (Music Video)
Genre: 1980s, 2010s, Female Character of Color, Gen, Inspired by Real Events, Magic, Podfic Welcome, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-29
Updated: 2016-05-29
Packaged: 2018-07-10 17:47:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6998392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hagar/pseuds/Hagar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ah, clever girl: of course they're wrong. That’s Life, right there: always a contradiction in terms. And if you know it, then well - then, you can do <i>anything.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Like a Diamond

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Supertights](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Supertights/gifts).



Some say the secret to Life is the order of it, the capacity to maintain  _ just  _ this shape, this shape that happens to be Yours. That’s no mean feat, in this unthinking world that keeps tearing and grinding down at all things that have shape of their own. And then some say, the secret to Life is the chaos of it, the endless potential to change - the ability to still be yourself even though you’re of a different shape. 

The truth is, they’re both right; the secret is, they’re both wrong.

Think of graphite, soft and yielding; now think of diamonds, harder than hard. Now did you know, they’re made of the same thing? Carbon, both of them, carbon and circumstance. Now think of ice, and how it can pierce through the toughest, thickest metall. But ice is just water, isn’t it? Same water that’ll take any shape. That’s right, my baby girl: water and circumstances. 

Tell me now, what are living things made of? Do you know? Then let me tell you: carbon, and water, and circumstance. That’s the potential you have. That’s the potential all Life has. That’s the truth, and  _ you _ ought to know it: don’t you believe the fanatics of Order, who’d preserve an unfair world if it benefits them, and don’t you believe the anarchists who’d leave everyone defenceless if they have anything to gain.  _ That _ is the Secret. That’s what makes us  _ alive _ , not just bits of black rock or fumes in the wind. That’s the Secret to Life, to be both soft and unyielding, at the same time. 

Now, some say it doesn’t matter, whether or not you know it. A germ knows nothing, after all, but that doesn’t mean it can’t adapt. That’s truth, of course - ah, clever girl: of course it’s false. That’s Life, right there: always a contradiction in the very terms. Some do know it, you’re right; some  _ Know  _ it, all the way down with a capital K. And if you Know it, all the way down like that, then, well -

Then you can do  _ anything. _

 

* * *

 

She was going to die out there. On a derelict desert road, under a moonless sky, Desiree was going to die. Voices chased her through the night, biting into her like the pebbles under her feet. Yet the pain was nowhere near enough to stop Desiree from running for all she was worth; the boys’ viciousness couldn’t drown out the _smack-smack-smack!_ of her sandals against the cracked, dusty asphalt, or the strained, quickening rhythm of her stubborn breath.

Headlights spilled over and around her, lighting her way in a mockery of kindness; any second now one of _them_ might hit the gas, then the truck would speed, and Desiree would die. There wasn’t anyone in town Desiree couldn’t outrun, but that’s what they were chasing her down for, the reason those _stupid_ boys had sense enough to get a car.

It would help her none at all if she would stop running now. She could let herself fall, pretend to trip, wait for the boys to come to her then turn on them with teeth and long nails and maybe, _maybe_ if she was lucky a sharp rock; she could do all that, yet it wouldn’t spare her from death. Desiree was going to die: out there, on the derelict desert road, and if that was what choice she was going to get, then she would go out running.

Yet she did stop running; above her the sky turned into sheets of light, bright and luminescent as if Heaven had bolts of silk that it rolled out all the way down, until the realer-than-real green of it touched down right _there,_ where Desiree was. She stared in wonder until it occurred to her she hadn’t heard the car’s engine since the lights touched down. Then she tilted her face back down, turned back her head.

The car was a smoking wreck, dented around where it’d crashed into Desiree while she’d basked in the lights. Power tingled at her fingertips; she spread her arms and the car bent back into shape, oil and gas flowing back into pipes the light smoothed whole. But the magic did not restore life to the boys who’d ran Desiree down; their bodies were cast across the sand and the rocks as if flung by a careless hand.

Desiree laughed.

 

* * *

 

Fire roared like a storm. Bright, hot flames caught to one person’s flesh and leaped to the next person’s clothes. The fire spread, yet Tanisha alone could see it. It’s always been like that: Tanisha had always reached for that which was on fire and walked through doors decorated with flames, even since she was a child. She’s learned to tell the difference of _this_ fire and ordinary one: both would demolish, but only one marked the flesh.

This demo burnt so bright Tanisha could’ve seen it from several blocks away. It put a heat in people’s cheeks, a ring in their voice and a spring in their step; but sooner or later that would change. Sooner or later, the fire would catch on to someone whose heart burned brighter with anger or hate than with the need to be known and _heard_ , and when that happened the peaceful demo would become a riot. If Tanisha wanted to leave before the riot gear came out, then she was running out of time: she knew it in her bones.

This fire, too, could destroy; Tanisha had always known. The sun enabled all life and gave cancer all the same: nothing was good or bad in and of itself. Nothing was only Life’s or only Death’s, and Tanisha has always walked out before the fire could mark her for the latter. It was playing with fire, to stay. But then…

But then -

She alone could tell, when it was going to turn. Everyone else who came to protest did not have that luxury. And wasn’t _this_ what it was about, that it wasn’t right to leave people behind like that?

 _Then own it._ She could throw herself forward; she could choose what to feed the fire, what hue to give it. _This is your fire, Tanisha. You shine bright, tonight._

_Like a diamond._

 


End file.
